Frost Killing Hour
by Itty Bitty Albatross
Summary: A look at the friendship between Elsa and Jack Frost. Title comes from Natalie Merchant's 'My Skin'. Rated M because of multiple directions this fic may go.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**s**—not mine, regrettably. I have a trained bloodhound on the trail of the owners, however, so at some point I may be able to make of movie of this fanfic. If only my dogs would stop bringing me back newspapers…**

Chapter One—Snowflakes

It's been said that happy endings don't truly exist. While the ending to one aspect of a story may be happy, there is never a true ending to a story. After the adventure is done, the wrinkles have been smoothed out, and the villains defeated, life carries on.

So it was to Queen Elsa, on the day this story begins. She was standing out on the balcony of her palace, watching her breath morph into a cloud of cold vapor on every exhale. She'd been standing there for hours now, staring at the gate of her castle, since her sister had left.

Anna needed space. Her story right now was a happy one, a Greek comedy; she had a husband who loved her and a home. Since learning how to act around people, she had discovered she had a knack for interacting with others. Most people treasured their conversations with her; she was open, honest, and occasionally awkward. She was a breath of fresh air in the normally stagnant dealings between countries.

Elsa had pushed aside her need to protect Anna and had appointed her ambassador, as well as co-advisor. There wasn't anyone she needed by her side more than her best friend and sister.

That didn't stop the loneliness, the fear that sat, tempestuous, in Elsa sometimes. The loneliness was born of years of feeling _different_. The fear had the same root—it was a fear that the _different_ would take over and reduce the world to a cold waste. The loneliness and the fear were not constants, of course—they were tempered by the love. Love, Elsa's saving grace. The knowledge that her sister and her people loved her was enough to make the darker things go away.

Elsa stretched one long, fair arm out into the air, over the empty space. This balcony was her favorite. It was several stories up and spacious. The direction is faced meant that there was always a warm breeze sweeping past and over it. She felt that breeze then, tugging gently at her dress, hair and extended fingers. She twisted those fingers a little and felt the cold under her skin loose itself into the air. A handful of beautiful, glittering snowflakes danced around her palm in a mini blizzard. She sighed and felt the tickle of exhaled ice crystals. She held her hand as still as possible and the snowflakes froze in place, suspended in the air. When she was distracted by the sudden cold a moment later, she let them fall, gently, to the ground.

The cold came like a sheet. It swept over her not from the outside in, but from the inside out. She spun around, hands already held up in a defensive maneuver. She held them there at the intruder, but didn't fire yet.

The intruder was a lithe boy. He looked to be around Anna's age. He wore brown pants, a blue sweatshirt, and a smirk. He had white hair like Elsa's. He was leaning nonchalantly on a tall wooden staff. Elsa could feel the cold radiating off of him, like the reverse of a space heater.

"Who are you?" Elsa demanded. He didn't look as though he would be too much of a problem to handle, but she eyed the door anyway. If she screamed, guards would be at her side almost instantly.

"A friend, I suppose." He stood up and started walking around the room, swinging his staff absently. She cringed when it veered close to a vase. "I met Kristoff a while back, and he mentioned I should stop in and introduce myself. I was in the neighborhood, so. . . "

He stuck out his hand for her to shake. "I'm Jack Frost."

That took her aback. She'd heard of a Jack Frost when she was little, but there was no telling if this was that Jack Frost, or a different one, or if this guy was using Jack Frost as a pseudonym. She shoved her concern and curiosity aside for a moment and shook the offered hand.

"Queen Elsa." She introduced herself, despite being quite sure he already knew that. "You know Kristoff?" She hinted, trying to discover why he was there.

"Yes. Well, actually, he knew a friend of mine, who told him about me, and Kristoff said that Anna, who I guess is your sister, he said her sister had a similar gift. He said we should meet, and when I was blowing through here a few minutes ago I noticed that there was a cold patch a little bit north of here, with a really nice house, and someone told me it was yours. I didn't realize until then that the Snow Queen Elsa was the person Kristoff had been talking about, because he only refered to you as 'Anna's sister who makes cold things'. So I snuck in to meet you." He finished, then smiled, as if that explained everything. Meanwhile, Elsa's head was spinning.

"What?" All she had managed to glean from that was that Jack Frost knew Kristoff, and that he had seen her ice palace. She opened her mouth to interrogate, ahem, inquire further, but he was quicker.

"I make snow too. my friend, a king who lives a bit away in—" he waved his hand roughly south "—That direction, knows Kristoff. Kristoff, who is always bragging about Anna, mentioned you. I thought birds of a feather should flock together, or whatever." He shrugged and walked out onto her balcony.

"You make snow, too." Elsa repeated quietly. A small flicker of flame, a happy little light, lit up in her stomach. She wasn't alone.

"Yeah." He waved his hand around, and made a few small piles of fluffy snow fall onto the floor. He looked down at them with his eyebrows knitted, like it had just occurred to him that she may not want a puddle of icy water on the floor of her balcony room. Elsa quickly held her hand out, palm facing the pile, and shot a blast of crisp air at it. The pile swept right out of the room and off the balcony. He looked pleased, then uncomfortable.

"I can't tell you how I got my power." He said shortly. Her eyebrows shot up.

"Why?"

"Because . . . I'm not really sure. I just can't. It's against some obscure rule."

"Who's rule?" She pushed.

"Nobody's. Not important. The point is, I can't give you any answers about that, and I don't want any of yours."

"Then what do you want?" Elsa needed to know.

"I just want a friend!" He blurted.

That threw her for a moment. He wanted a friend. Here was another person who wouldn't judge her for being different, for being cold.

"Me too." She said calmly, and they shared a tentative smile.

**Author's note-This is short. I'm jumping right in there. If you like, give me some feedback. I've already got this sketched out to, oh, around chapter five, but posting will be quicker and higher priority if you respond. **

**Tobi. **


	2. Chapter 2

Two days. Jack knew that's how long he'd stay—two days was all he could ever stay in one place before he started to get itchy.

He wasn't fully sure what had pushed him to stop, in the first place. The only thing that came to mind was something Tooth had once told him. He had been pacing, because he was sure something was wrong. It took him forever to realize he was worried because he had _family;_ he had _friends_, for the first time in memory. He had been alone for so long. He didn't even remember how long he had gone from waking up in that pond to the first time anyone saw him. He had kept track of time for the first few weeks but after that it just drifted away. The few spirits that saw him weren't interested in being his friend; most of them told him to get lost. The Guardians had saved him, accepted him, but it couldn't last. It never lasted.

He was too cold, too wild. His life was geared towards fun, and that alienated him from the others. They may need him, like him, even love him in one way or another, but sometimes they didn't want him around.

Call him a friend addict. He got a taste of what it was like to have someone who cared, and he wanted more. Snow Queen Elsa needed a friend too. He could tell that she needed fun. For now, they could help each other out.

For two days they talked, wandered and iced.

They talked about childhoods, happy memories, and wishes.

They didn't discuss fears, isolation, or the origins of their powers.

Jack Frost didn't remember much about his childhood, but he knew kids. He understood the way they worked and the way they thought. He didn't bring up his sister, because that seemed like too much. He did see a lot of similarities between what little he remembered of her and everything Elsa told him about Anna. Jack noticed Elsa didn't talk about her parents, but she loved to talk about Anna. She loved her country, too, that was obvious. She also was learning how to love herself, and the power she possessed, while trying to recover from a dark time. She reminded Jack of himself, sometimes.

"What do you want from me, Jack?" She asked on the second, last, day.

"Your time."

"I may not always be able to give you that, but I can try. I don't have much to give, overall. I just need to know what I can give you that you want."

"Time. Someone to fight with. A little affection would be nice."

"That's it?"

"That's it. I don't want money, or power, or anything. What do you want from me?"

Pause.

"I don't know. The same, I think. I'd like you to keep visiting, and I may write to you. I enjoyed fighting, though that seems wrong. Affection…but not romance. Affection would be nice."

"I can do that. Although, I probably won't write much."

Elsa laughed.

.

"Coming to see me off?" Jack teased. Elsa had swept down the stairs, dress trailing behind her majestically. Jack was balancing, as usual, crouched on top of his staff. He didn't know why he did it. Old habits die hard. As she walked towards him, he could feel the slight warmth her body heat brought. She didn't seem to notice; she always felt cold compared to others. Compared to him, she was volcanic.

She got three letters in the months he was away; a letter for each month. They blew in on a breeze early in the month, loose leaf paper stapled together. She wasn't quite sure how he managed to get it in the window of the room they met in each time.

They weren't quite letters, more like notes. It was as if he had just sat down with a pen and paper and scrawled whatever came to mind as he wrote. He never wrote much, just a brief mention of how he was and what he'd been doing. She didn't have a way to write back, and nothing interesting had really happened, anyway. More official business, more laws passed, more property disputes were settled. His messages were much more interesting.

'_Elsa,_

_Talked to a snow sprite today. Not sure she spoke English. Seemed friendly enough. _

_Broke my finger in a bad landing, taking a day off. Pitch and Tooth say hi. _

_If a cold front blows through, don't panic. It's not you. It's me. _

_Bye. _

_Jack.'_

That one was tied up in a scroll by a small piece of flowered ribbon, the kind that might have blown off a lady's hat.

'_Elsa,_

_Tell Kristoff and Anna I say hi. Having a bit of trouble with frosting things in my sleep—scared two cows and a nice farmer, broke my finger (again) breaking out of jail. Other than that things have been boring. _

_I might come visit soon. It depends on how the turtles do while I'm away.'_

(At least, that's what it looked like it said, to Elsa. Jack had horrible handwriting. If he was talking about turtles, it made no sense to her.)

'_Bye._

_Jack.'_

Confusing bit about turtles aside, Elsa hoped he'd come visit. A lord and his entourage had recently come to the kingdom to discuss the harboring of fugitives, and while he was nice enough, for a lord, and hadn't tried to kill her, like other unnamed royalty, but she was growing tired of leading and mediating.

Per his request, she wrote a letter to Kristoff and Anna, telling them about her having met Jack and relaying his greeting.

'_Jack! How is he? I told him to stop in and see you. Are you too getting on, then?'_ Kristoff's messy scrawl filled the upper part of the page. Beneath that, in Anna's tutored calligraphy, '_Kris says Jack's fun, if a bit wild. I hope you get along well.'_, followed by questions about the kingdom and the castle and the kittens that were born down in the stable, that Anna had taken a particular liking to.

Elsa wrote back '_Yes, we met. To my knowledge he's doing fine, if he keeps breaking a finger. He mentioned something about jail; should I be worried? We're getting along fine, I think, we're friends now.'_

Kristoff replied the day after (blessed, fast mail delivery). '_Not the first time he's broken a finger since I met him. He heals fast. Also not the first time he's been put in jail, I wouldn't worry. Glad you've found a friend.'_

'_I'm glad, too.'_ Anna added to the end, putting a bit more about they're house and the negotiations with the King and Queen from the land nearby, which were evidently going well. Elsa liked the royalty from there: an older couple and their newly-wed daughter and her husband. They were characters, humble, not haughty like most kings and queens.

It was disturbing that injuries and incarceration seemed to be a regular thing. If she had an address to write back to, Elsa would have warned him not to get arrested in her land.

She'd grown so attached to him so fast; she might have had to issue a royal pardon. Or break him out of prison, which was always an option.

Not an ideal option, but an option.

After the lord and company left, she took a break from the castle to her palace. She had put a little bubble of cold air around it, to preserve the frigid temperature.

She stepped in the entry-way and inhaled a deep, deep breath, feeling the chill scrape the back of her throat. She exhaled, her breath puffing out along with the tension she'd accumulated.

'_Let it go.'_

She pulled her bag off her shoulder and dug through for the book she had packed. It was a classic, one that had been read to her at a young age until she could read it herself. By now it was worn and wrinkled with a page missing in the front that once held the chapter index, pictures fading from years of questioning fingers rolling over the inked drawings of dragons and knights and beautiful princesses.

Elsa smiled. '_Who knew magic was real, knights existed but not always in armour, and beautiful princesses could hold secrets and take care of each other?'_

That day Elsa wandered through the place, running her icy hands over the even-icier banisters and walls.

Later that day, the temperature dropped even more, suddenly, as she flicked through the ending chapters of the book.

"Hello, Jack." Elsa said, without looking up. A small snowflake drifted over, falling onto her wrist.

"Hello, Elsa." He responded, grinning softly at she met his eyes.

"Be in town long?" She asked it casually.

"We'll see." He grinned. "Mind if I stay here?"

She pretended to think about it, tapping her chin. He raised one eyebrow.

"I'll help keep it cool, like an icebox." He offered, like he was trying to persuade her.

"Alright, then." She offered her hand, like shaking on a deal. He took it and shook.

"So, do you have anything fun around here?"

"Books." Elsa lifted the book she was reading, to demonstrate.

He wrinkled his nose disdainfully. "What's it about?"

"It's an adventure! A princess is being held captive by a dragon and is saved by a knight."

"Sounds…" He flailed for a word. "Interesting?" He finally finished.

Elsa laughed.

She pulled some extra blankets out of a trunk and gave them to him. She doubted he'd need them, cold body temperature and all, but she herself found something comforting in wrapping up in a coverlet.

He snoozed in an alcove on the second floor, near on open wall.

"I don't like feeling trapped." He explained, as she walked him up there.

"Claustrophic." She'd had that feeling before, after getting trapped in a closet during a childhood game of hide-and-seek. It was a sickening feeling in your stomach, a spinning in your head, and the terrifying sensation of thinking the walls were sneaking closer.

She fell asleep wrapped up in her own blankets, comfortable and happy.


End file.
